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Hackers Steal Army Secrets From South Korea

A maker of law reports that hackers stole 1,715 data files carrying military secrets of South Korea with war programs opposed to North Korea, after they invaded several computers the South Korean army used, according to Softpedia, which published the news on August 21, 2010.

Remarking about the unfortunate incident, the military stated that it was the greatest breach ever since South Korea established its Cyber Security Center during December 2005 for combating the kind of attacks.

As per reports obtained, the breach took place during January-March this year (2010), whilst unspecified malware infected the computers of thirteen military personnel engaged in studying confidential data. These thirteen officers, who encountered the attack, were on duty in units situated in the same area.

Reportedly, the officers, one of whom was Col. Jang, were studying army data on their PCs whilst hackers contaminated the Internet-connected systems with worms for stealing secrets.

JoongAng Daily in its news published on August 20, 2010 reported that according to lawmaker Song Young-sun for Future Hope Alliance who is also a National Defense Committee member under the National Assembly, the hacked data partially consisted of vital details regarding war programs opposed to North Korea.

The hackers, who committed the grave offence, are still to be identified, sources said. However, since an identical virus and believably from one common source was used to execute the attacks, South Korea thinks it's North Korea in the neighborhood that was involved.

Also according to the reports, data hacks for army secrets increased from one in 2007, five in 2008, 41 in 2009 to more than 1,000 during January-June 2010 alone. On average the figure currently stands at 93,720 per day, an increase by three times since 2006 when it was 29,681.

Naturally South Korean authorities are disturbed regarding such an unceasing surge in data breach incidences with the addition of the number of instances in which army employees are deliberately leaking out secrets for money. Reportedly, there have been 71 army employees who were found deliberately giving away army secrets during January-June 2010, while 59 employees had secrets leaking out on mistake.